Fontainbleu

OMG I have never been so cold in my life!!! The weather here in Vairano was so nice for the week leading up to us leaving. We were all in shorts and sunbathing during our lunchtimes (I love how I don't get burnt over here!) so I packed lots of singlets and shorts etc. and as soon as we passed the boarder into France it started snowing!!! (I was rather excited but I don't think everyone shared my joy) So anyway I spent the whole week wearing ALL my clothes and still I just about froze to death. But anyway once I got moving (something I did a lot of) I warmed up slightly and had SO much fun but man it was full on!

The ponys went ok. Ava did well in the dressage, clear XC but had 4 rails (she can be a little clumsy at times). Caro did ok dressage, 1 stop XC (Susy was not happy), and 4 rails SJ (Apparently shes never taken this many in her life - needless to say Susys going to do a bit of work with her) And Tucker the little star got a ribbon ended up about 10th ish (hes the horse that everyone hates hes really stiff and not easy to ride) but he scored quite well in the dressage (probably a bit higher than he should of but hey its all good) clear XC and SJ (only a handful of horses went clear SJ) so yeah he got extra carrots on the way home.

The journey was a very eventful one. On the way there we had a driver that took us up. We went through the tunnel on Mt Blanc (the 6km one where they had a big fire a couple of years ago and lots of people died from smoke inhalation) so they're quite strict on following distances you get stopped on the way in a let through a few seconds after the car in front has gone so your not too close. Anyway on the other side we got asked to pull over and asked to show his license and was like umm I left it at home!! (big no no over here) so anyway they took him out somewhere and he ended up getting a fine for not respecting following distances but somehow managed to talk his way out of the not having license one (luckily he spoke French very well otherwise things could have been a bit tricky) And things didn't get any better on the way home either. We stopped at a toll booth thingy (I guess that's what they're called - when you have to pay to use the road) and we went into the wrong one which was all good we just backed out and went to go into the next one however apparently we didn't go back far enough cause we didn't make in round the concrete post separating them and now have a huge dent and a chunk missing from the side... opps Susy was not happy about that!!! She wasn't just mad about having to pay to get it fixed she was worried that someone would see her looking like a Gypsy lol (personally I would be ecstatic to be seen in that mansion whether it had a dent or not) so anyway we got back home and were backing round the corner to where it gets parked and CRUNCH she backed into the gutter - not a good day.

I actually found it very interesting how friendly and helpful the French were with the language thing. Maybe I was just lucky but I found a lot more people spoke English than in Italy and they all seemed happy to speak to me in it. Which is completely the opposite to what everyone has told me. I dunno maybe I was just lucky.